Ikenfell is a recently released magical JRPG with a compelling story and fascinating characters. Joanna Blackhart, a member of the game’s writing and sensitivity team, recent spoke with Game Rant more about the new Indie game.
Q: You were a part of Ikenfell’s writing and sensitivity team. What exactly did that look like?
Basically what that entails and how I got involved is kind of one big story. I was actually brought on by Aivi of Aivi and Surasshu, you know, the person who made the music, Steven Universe, fame and everything. We’ve known each other for some years. They’ve been working on this game that I was familiar with, because I was also friends with the dev, and I play tested Ikenfell several years ago. The original point was just going to be touching up here and there, cleaning a little bit, but as we went further and further and further in, we realized that the job that I had been hired for wasn’t quite going to really cut it, and we needed to be able to go deeper into it.
Aivi approached me and said, “I want to bring on someone that I know I can trust with showing respectful representation of queer creators and creators of color, and I want you to help me find one or two people. We can form this small team, and what y’all will be doing is going through the game and fixing things up, tidying it as needed — making sure that all the characters are really, really good rep.” But as we went further and further in, we realized that the job that I had been hired for wasn’t quite going to really cut it. We needed to be able to go deeper into it.
The rest of the team and I came together, and we basically started sitting down and looking at all the writing, all the story, and all of the characters. We started tearing it down bit by bit. We wrote out entire scripts and stuff. We played through the entire game together and really put everything on paper. We took lots and lots of notes. I think, in total, our final note process was something like 10-15 pages of notes and changes and everything that we really wanted and needed to make in the game. It was everything from character names, to character designs to characterization, characterizations to relationships to scripting to how things were said to what they were saying, why they were said. We really, really, really tore it apart. What we ended up doing was basically rewriting and re scripting the entire game from beginning to end.
Personally speaking, I had to turn off for a day or two during the process because of the heavy content we were having to rewrite and work on and script. It was a lot on us; it took a toll. That’s a thing that happens constantly in game development but something that you never hear about.
The reason I specifically said to Chevy, “Hey, I want this implementation, these content warnings as a feature,” is because playing through, I found myself having panic attacks and anxiety attacks and breaking down from how heavy some of the material we were having to write was. It was hard, and it was heavy, and it was real. Chevy sat down, and in the course of less than two weeks, he’s like, “We’ve got it. Here you go. Try this out.” And I was like, “Oh, my God, dude, this is brilliant. This is exactly what we need.”
Q: How did the team dream up of the concept of Ikenfell?
The concept of Ikenfell is actually Chevy’s dream project. It was a project that Chevy began about five or six years ago and had a successful Kickstarter a few years ago, whenever he dreamed it up. He built a demo; he started playtesting it. There was different versions of it available in the very beginning. At that point, it was basically just a little bit of script and a little bit of battle, to really show people what they would be investing in if they decided to fund this project. Over the course of the years as Chevy continued building it, the world grew, and the project grew, and it very, very naturally turned into what it is now.
Q: Did any other games inspire your and the team’s work on Ikenfell?
When Chevy was writing this, or whenever he was designing the game, his big influences in terms of the battle system are the Mother games, the Mario Luigi games, really classic 16 32-bit tactical RPGs where you throw back and forth and everything.
When I came into this — this is a weird thing to say — I personally didn’t have a whole lot that I had influencing me if that makes sense. I went in with the mindset that I wanted to create things that hadn’t been done. I myself have PTSD. I have clinical OCD. I have anxiety disorders. I have a lot of issues, and I know our players do too. The first thing I said — when I was going in because I was technically, at that point, still being brought on as the person who helped make it more accessible — was I wanted to make this game more accessible. I wanted to see things that I don’t see in games.
Q: Sensitivity and accessibility is a big part of Ikenfell. Do you see more games including these features in the future, and how do you see this happening?
It has been wild to me that I have seen some reviews saying, including Game Rant, saying that they want to see some of the features that we implemented across the entire industry, which is mind blowing to me. I myself have worked in and out of games for for a dozen years, and this is the first time that I got to put my name on a project that I was a major part of.
Seeing people say that these features that I requested, just because I myself need these things is shocking to me. Seeing people say that they want these things implemented across all games and saying that they’re revolutionary — it’s very cool and very inspiring, and a little bit depressing. Because I would love games to be more accessible — I games need to be more accessible — that’s not something I just want. That’s a need of the entire industry, it’s a need of the tech industry. Tech has a very large problem with accessibility.
As far as how to do it, hire people. That’s what I was hired to do. I suppose in a way, that’s what we did. You bring in people that are going to be affected by your game, and you say, “How do we make this better?”. They will do what we did with Ikenfell, and they will make it better. Who knows — maybe some of those changes might end up influencing things that turn into industry standards. I would love to see some of the features we put in you can tell because of industry standards.
Q: You’ve been popping into a lot of Ikenfell streams on Twitch. What’re some of your favorite reactions that you’ve seen new players have to the game?
Haha, this is embarrassing. Hi, streamers I keep popping into! I’m so sorry — I just really love your streams! My favorite reaction to how everyone’s been playing… When we were writing Ikenfell — I myself am very, very queer. I’m non-binary trans. I am what is most easily described as a lesbian, although it’s obviously not that simple. My favorite reaction has been how positively players have responded towards how openly queer our game is. Watching players just screaming at the top of their lungs and saying that they’re feeling Gilda, that they’re feeling the story — what it turns into, to what it becomes — they’re feeling the relationships and connecting with our characters, that matters so much to me.
When we were sitting down and writing these characters, we were writing from our own experiences — the accessibility team that ended up doing all this stuff. We were writing from stuff we lived through — these relationships are things that we ourselves have had to cope with and had to struggle through. So to see so many players responding so positively saying, “This is so realistic, this is so great, this is so queer, and I love the characters of color, representation.” These are all things that are a part of our daily lives, and seeing such positive responses is something that I really hope that other game devs — not just Indie devs, but I would love to see AAA devs also take note of that sort of thing. It’s not hard to put good representation in your game. Just put people in the writing room that actually have some lived experience. It’s that simple.
One thing that I had noticed growing up is that I, in my life, had never seen a gay character that had actually says the words, “I am gay.” I’m not sure it has never happened — if it has, I haven’t seen it. I’m sure there are a couple of Indie games that have done it — it’s not an unheard of phrase — but any AAA mainstream game? I’ve never heard those words! To me, that is depressing — that is so depressing. So whenever we were writing, I was very insistent that the words “I am gay” be in our game somewhere. That was a priority because I wanted young queer kids to see that and be like, “Holy crap, that’s me!”
Q: With the attention that Ikenfell has been getting, do you see the possibility of a sequel or a DLC in the future?
The dreaded question I was hoping I wouldn’t get! Okay, so here’s what I can publicly say about that. Chevy has said, on Twitter, that if we sell a million copies of Ikenfell, he will write DLC for this game. So we have to sell a million copies. As to what that might entail, what that might look like sequels and all that, we have a lot of ideas, we have a lot of hope, we have goals that would be nice to see. We’re still a very, very small team. The entire dev team was, before you put in play testers, and the publishers and all that sort of thing, our individual team was less than 10 people. This game was a labor of love that took like I said — about five to six years.
I personally would very much love for us to be able to make a sequel. I’d love for us to be able to make more Ikenfell. I’d love for us to be able to stretch it out. One of the things I’ve seen players asking for more is more story and more background to these characters, but I think all that is really going to depend on the reception, which so far has been overwhelmingly positive. I have been blown away by the reception that we’ve had.
But right now, at this current moment, the big things we’re doing is focusing on bug fixes and patching little mistakes in the game. There were a couple of things that got dropped between development and publishing such as places where some content warnings are missing. So we’re going to make sure that those get put back in where they were supposed to be. There’s one place that we’re aware of where Nel gets misgendered, and that is being fixed. We recently patched in one of the places where originally we were supposed to introduce that Rook is non-binary — that got missed in the original script. Basically right now what we’re doing is fixing everything, fixing bugs and getting a bit of downtime.
One of the things that I’ve personally been doing is I’ve seen players say, “Okay, this place is uncomfortable to me, this place is uncomfortable to me.” So I’ve gone back and I’m submitting more changes of things that would be additional content warnings and that sort of thing. We’re trying to implement additional accessory accessibility features. The accessibility talk is not done just because the game is done. That’s something I’d love to see AAA devs do — and also Indie devs. The process of development isn’t just one and done in the day of games as a service. We are still building things. We’re still patching things, and that includes accessibility. We’re trying to make our game more accessible, even as even though it’s already published.
While Chevy was busy working on this, I’m sure you’re aware that Aivi and Surasshu have been working on Steven Universe stuff — which by the way, I just want to plug that real quick — several of the Steven Universe albums that they wrote have just come out and y’all should definitely check them out. Our other team members have their own projects that they’re building. We’ve got a lot going on, but I do hope that we can come back to the world of Ikenfell. If we can, as soon as possible would be my dream.
Q: Do you think that the Ikenfell team will make the game available on next generation consoles like the PS5 and Xbox Series X?
We’ve been getting this question a lot. We’ve also been getting questions about when can we push to the PS Vita. I would love to play this game on my Vita. Vita doesn’t get any love, and I just want all of you Vita lovers out there to know that the dev team — several of us still carry our Vitas in our back pocket.
Regarding next gen consoles, I think that also might end up coming down to sales. Humble [Games] has been very generous about making sure that we were published as quickly as possible with a very good team, and they did a great job of all the different ports. Everyone behind the scenes absolutely was great. Obviously, we’re on the cusp of the next generation. The Xbox Series X and PS5 both come out before the end of the year, which is wild to me.
If we can do it, I think that might be a little bit, again, of just seeing how well it does and Humble getting players that first want to see it on next gen, that it’ll sell more, and that it’s a popular enough game to really get that sort of treatment. The system is unfortunately based on capitalism, it’s based on sales, and it’s based on numbers. The game industry is, especially when you start getting into publishing is very much based on numbers, as much as our game itself was a labor of love. It’s still playing in the world of “Okay, but can we sell this many copies?”. But I do hope. I would love to be able to play this on the PS5.
Q: What would you like to tell players who are just getting into Ikenfell or are thinking about getting it?
You know, what I actually think I might say… I’ve thought about this, and I think one of my favorite selling points at this point might actually be some of our negative reviews. I spend way way way too much time reading steam, and reading Metacritic and reading every single vlog because I just want to know what people think and one of the things that I feel most in my heart is whenever people that don’t like our game, if they don’t have real criticisms of something like the battle system or the story taking time or whatever or if they just don’t like the type of game. One thing I see frequently is players just within a few lines saying, “I don’t like how openly queer the characters are.” And you know what? I’m fine with that.
Whenever I started working with our team, I was always saying, “How can we make it more queer? How can we make it more queer?” I wanted queer. I wanted more gay. For anyone on that hasn’t tried this before, if you like queer games made by queer creators, made by creators of color — most of our team is, in fact, not white. We come from lots and lots of different backgrounds, which is awesome. I want to add — I’ve never worked on a team like this. I would say, please check out our game because I promise you will either like it or double your sadness back.
The last thing I want to leave readers with is that… I know life can be really sucky. I know things can be hard, and especially now that 2020 is officially the year of the dumpster fire — it’s rough out there. A lot of days it feels like there’s not much to hope for. I promise — I promise — that there is something better at the end of this tunnel. The real message of Ikenfell is learning about forgiveness and learning about yourself, and through this process that’s one of the things I did is learning to forgive myself a little bit for past mistakes. I know things are hard, but you can do whatever you set your mind to. You just have to believe in yourself — especially when no one else believes in you. I had years where no one believed in me, and I survived through child abuse and a number of other things. You can do it. I know it’s hard and painful, but someone out there believes in you. Someone out there loves you. I love you, even if we haven’t met yet. You can do it — I believe in you.
[End.]
Ikenfell is available now on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
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